Festival Committee Cancels Fireworks

The beloved Ellwood City Festival Fireworks have been canceled.

The announcement came from Ellwood City Arts, Crafts, Foods and Entertainment Festival Committee.

“The Festival budget exceeds $60,000 each year, and as you probably know, prices don’t come down, they go up,” the committee said. “The total budget covers police protection, trash pick-up, porta-johns, cleaning service, use of the park, fireworks, entertainment, advertising, insurance, and more. With rising costs, the past decade has seen the committee cut expenses wherever possible to keep the Festival a reality for the community.”

Although the festivals other features including vendors will still be part of the event, unfortunately for the community, the committee is cutting fireworks out of the budget this year and says that the decision centers around parking profits.

The committee asked the Ellwood City Area School District board for use of the school district lots at the Ewing Park School site and the football stadium along Joffre Street, but were only granted use of one lot.

“Parking revenue is an essential part of the Festival’s financial plan,” the committee said. “In some years, parking proceeds have totaled more than 20% of the total budget.”

Numerous community groups raise funds during the festival. Whether it be through the sales of food or revenue from parking. That tradition seemed to go on without any problems until 2016.

“In December, 2016, the Festival committee was blindsided when a letter from the Ellwood Volunteer Fire Department to the Ellwood Area School Board requested use of the Ewing Park school lot to park cars over the Festival. This letter concluded with a request from the fire department to cut out the committee from receiving revenue from parking on district lots,” the committee said. “The letter stated, ‘Also you may or may not be aware that the festival committee takes half of the parking fees for their usage. With this letter we hope this would not happen this year.’ ”

According to the festival committee, the school board granted use of the lot to the fire department without contacting the festival committee. Later the fire department and festival committee worked to an agreement to split the parking profits 50/50, which has traditionally been the agreement between the festival committee and local organizations.

The fire department wasn’t the only group that wanted to keep more of the profits raised from parking. The committee said In 2018, the Ellwood Football Boosters took 60% and gave the committee 40%; for 2019, the split for the committee has been be reduced to 65/35.

“It is a sad day in Ellwood City when any group wants the benefits of a good thing without offering their fair share of the expenses,” the committee said.

Cutting the fireworks will directly impact the organizations that rely on the display to bring in the crowds and fill the parking spaces, which in turn brings in revenue.

“Unfortunately for all groups parking, it is likely the lot revenue from Sunday evening will be greatly affected, with no fireworks to draw visitors to the grounds on the last night. Traditionally, parking revenue spikes on Sunday evening starting around 5 p.m.,” the committee said. “The Festival committee has traditionally allowed all groups to keep all parking revenue after the last pick-up at around 7:30 p.m. There has been no split of revenue after that last pick-up on Sunday evening, resulting in 100% profit for groups parking after around 7:30 p.m.”